Chris Dyer
speaker
104 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jan 2025
Chris Dyer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And if you're doing it, you probably belong back in the 19, I don't know, 40s. It doesn't work. It never really worked, but it definitely doesn't work today. Instead, ask people one question every week. What's going great? Where are you struggling? Who's killing it for you? What client's driving you crazy? What resource don't you have? If you had a magic wand, what would you fix?
What would you change in our software? You start asking people these things and they start sharing with you and you get great ideas. You get great insight on what they're dealing with, what's happening in their lives. And then before you ask the next question the next week, you come back to them as their boss and say, this is what I heard and this is what I'm going to do about it.
And at the end of the month, I would say these were the four questions or five questions we asked this month. Again, this is what I heard. Again, this is the update in progress and what we've done about it. And sometimes it was something good. You all said that Steve was the best employee ever this month. He's been helping everybody out.
Like we, we sent, you know, Steve to go get a massage and gave him a day off. Like, We did something cool for him. Or you're all telling me this one client is killing you. They are half of our tickets. They call constantly. They're driving you nuts.
We've already interacted, you know, call conversations with them to figure out how we can better service them without them filling up our, you know, resources away. So like, and then they feel hurt. We're actually solving their problems and we're making work better for them. That's how you do it. You mentioned Bob the janitor or Susie in the mail room.
What's the mechanism to actually hear from them? Because you may not ever actually, as the senior leader, you may never cross paths with that person. How do you extrapolate that knowledge and data and things from them Sometimes directly, sometimes through their bosses or the leadership in between you to actually enact change.
Yeah. I mean, they usually come to me for one of two reasons. One, they've got a giant headache, so they're looking for an aspirin, right? So that's one kind of client. And we have one approach for them. And then the other kind of client is like, listen, I know we're doing well, but I want to be next level. And so they're looking for a vitamin.
They're looking for what are the activities and things I can do to continue to be healthy.
and and and sustain this growth or this company whatever it is for the long term so the the answer for for both is i'm i have a seven pillar framework and there are we've proven that there are these seven things that if you do them well you can have a great culture in fact you probably will have a great culture and you you can move towards being a market leader
Um, a lot of good cultures and good companies do some of these pillars as well, but you have to do all seven in order to be great. So usually what I do is we look at the seven. I talk to them about the seven. And they begin to self-identify where they feel like they're doing well. That's really important. Where are we doing well? Because we don't want to stop doing that.
And then where are we doing okay? And ultimately, where is this like, you heard me say that and you were like, uncomfortable in your seat. You're like, I know that is not what we're doing well. And then the struggle is they've got to go and fix the one that's the worst. That has to be the first thing we do.
Sure. So in no particular order, but I always say this one first, but transparency is pillar one.
positive leadership positive uh if you're having positivity in the organization is number two uh then we have uniqueness which is celebrating what makes us unique understanding our unique value proposition so it's people and d and i and it's marketing and it's like you know but uniqueness is a really important one um then we have how you deal with mistakes Are you yellers and screamers?
Or are you, hey, let's learn from this. Let's figure out how we get better. Let's innovate. Measurement, measuring what matters. Listening. And then finally, recognition. So you have to have a great recognition program in your company in order to be great. So those are the seven. I can tell you which ones people typically are terrible at, but it's not universal.
I've gone into companies and you guys do all these great things, but you don't have a recognition program? What do you...
Usually people have some mechanism for listening, and usually they're okay at listening, but they could do better. We could do a question a week versus doing the annual survey. We could be surveying our clients more often than what we're doing now. There's usually some way they could get better, but they tend to be doing something. It's pretty rare for people to be doing nothing.
I think the one they struggle with the most... that when we start talking about what transparency really means, people get uncomfortable and they're like, oh, I don't know if we can do that. And yet, I would say when we got radically transparent with my organization and everyone I've ever consulted with or ever had, getting radically transparent has made all the difference in the world.
Because when I know a part of a story, And then that part of that story worries me or puts me in a fear mode. I immediately will make up the rest of the story. I will fill in the gaps. And what do I fill in the gaps with? What I know from history, what I know it's happening in the news, what I know from my own previous negative experiences, right? All the negative stuff I know my brain will go up.
So today, my boss, Bob, came in and he didn't look at me and he didn't talk to me. And he's been a little weird the last week. And I know our numbers are down. I must be getting fired. I must be getting late. Like immediately, like you go to me to fear. Yeah. Right. Instead, if we're radically transparent and my boss shows up and says, here's our P&L. Here's what's happening.
Here's what we're doing about it. Right. Here's our plan. oh, okay, now my anxiety level goes down and I can begin to help immediately. Ah, okay, you want to do this thing? You think that's going to help us save the business? I can help you do that. Like I can go and do, right? So showing up with our P&Ls every month is something I highly encourage companies to do.
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